Onnoghen To Forfeit Money In His Accounts, Banned From Holding Public Office For 10 Years

The
Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) on Thursday ordered the forfeiture of all the
money in the account of the suspended Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter
Onnoghen, which he did not declare.

Delivering
Judgment, Justice Danladi Umar, the CCT Chairman, found Onnoghen guilty on the
six counts preferred against him by the Federal Government.

Umar
also banned Onnoghen from holding any public office for 10 years.

The
CCT also ordered the removal of Onnoghen as CJN and as Chairman of the National
Judicial Council.

Onnoghen,
who was Nigeria’s 17th Chief Justice, was arraigned by the Code of Conduct
Bureau (CCB) following a petition brought against him by a group,
Anti-Corruption and Research Based Data Initiative, headed by a member of the
All Progressives Congress (APC) in Enugu State, Denis Aghanya.

Onnoghen
was charged on six counts for allegedly failing to declare some of his accounts
in the asset declaration form submitted to the CCB in December 2016.

According
to the charge, Onnoghen also failed to declare his assets after the expiration
of his declaration form filled in 2005.

Onnoghen’s
trials started when a petition was filed by the civil rights group at the CCB
alleging that he owns “sundry accounts primarily funded through cash deposits
made by himself up to as recently as August 10, 2016, which appear to have been
run in a manner inconsistent with financial transparency and the code of
conduct for public officials.”

The
trial commenced on January 14, 2019 at Code of Conduct Tribunal, but Onnoghen
was absent.

The
case was then adjourned to the following week because Onnoghen faulted the
summons procedure.

The
next hearing was slated for January 22, 2019, but he failed to show up in court
again.

Following
his absence again, President Muhammadu Buhari suspended him on January 26 and
appointed Tanko Ibrahim as the acting CJN.

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